Jill Abramson

In an interview with The New York Times Monday, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly warned reporter Emily Steel there could be consequences for inappropriate coverage surrounding disputed claims about his reportage of the Falklands War. “I am coming after you with everything I have,” Mr. O’Reilly said. “You can take it as a threat.” (The New York Times) | Politico's Dylan Byers followed up with Steel, who told him "the story speaks for itself." (Politico) | Here's Steel's tweet. (@emilysteel) | O'Reilly continued defending his coverage Monday and sought to end the controversy. (CNN Money) | Meanwhile, the author of a New York Times story that O'Reilly cited in his defense said the anchor "cut out an important phrase" while reading it on air.

Jill Abramson, formerly executive editor at The New York Times, has a longread out in West Side Spirit, a paper that bills itself as “Your local paper for the Upper West Side”.

The 2,900-word article, titled “The Second Tragedy of Traffic Deaths,” examines the impunity of New York City motorists who hit pedestrians. Here’s the nut graf:

The answer is this: If you want to kill someone in New York City and get away with it, the weapon of choice should be a vehicle. It’s the perfect crime. Fewer than 7 percent of the drivers in fatal crashes that kill pedestrians are ticketed and only a tiny fraction, usually only those driving drunk, face any criminal charges.

A memo from Janet Elder says the news org may not have enough buyout applications to forgo layoffs. "Early efforts to handicap the outcome regrettably point to having to do some layoffs." Also, if you take the buyout, MOMA will not let you in for free anymore. (Mother Jones) | Last month Keith J. Kelly reported that more than 300 people had filed buyout applications, but many were "just securing their rights and checking it out," Guild unit rep Grant Glickson said. (NY Post) | Floyd Norris is taking the buyout. (Talking Biz News) | More N.Y. Guild news: Eight Guild members who worked at Reuters' Insider video project are losing their jobs.

Abramson said she was aware of what Stanley had written about Shonda Rhimes, but “Alessandra has been a female TV critic for a long time and all of the critics, but especially the women critics at the Times, face a hail of bullets constantly.”

“And, okay, one review she wrote might have a regrettable or ‘tone deaf’ phrase in it, but you try doing that job!

Good morning. Here are 10 media stories. (Please read the note below if you’d like to keep getting this email.)

Second looks at First Look

Andrew Rice's profile of First Look Media founder Pierre Omidyar unspools the billionaire's animating interest in pandemics and Edward Snowden's revalations. It also catalogs the startup's awkward first steps. "The confusion inherent to any start-up has been exacerbated by Omidyar’s ruminative style," he writes. “I’ve never met Pierre in person,” Intercept reporter Glenn Greenwald tells Rice. (New York) | The NYT snagged a First Look solicitation for a publisher who can react "calmly to criticism and negative feedback." (NYT) | Related: Micah Lee writes about how he helped Snowden, Greenwald and Laura Poitras connect, and the dashed plans for a Snowden site called supportonlinerights.com.

Writers will be paid advances around $100,000 to produce stories that will be longer than long magazine articles but shorter than books, she said. There will be “one perfect whale of a story” each month and it will be available by subscription.

Nobody trusts BuzzFeed much: Pew’s new report on Political Polarization & Media Habits says “There is little overlap in the news sources” conservatives and liberals “turn to and trust.” The Wall Street Journal is trusted across ideological boundaries, and the BBC and The Economist do well among all but the most consistent conservatives, who say they equally trust and distrust those outlets. Only one publication is rated “More distrusted than trusted” regardless of respondents’ political outlook: BuzzFeed. It’s important to note, though, that fewer than 40 percent of respondents had heard of BuzzFeed. (Pew) | BuzzFeed EIC Ben Smith emails: “Most of the great news organizations have been around for decades, and trust is something you earn over time.

In a podcast Friday, former New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller said two innovation reports preceded the much publicized 2014 report by Arthur Gregg Sulzberger. Keller wrote the first in 2005 and Jill Abramson wrote the second in 2009.

Keller’s report advised that The Times had to stop treating the Web as “a secondary function,” and stated that the paper needed to “completely integrate” the digital side of the newsroom. Abramson’s report came after she “immersed herself in the web” for six months and came up with some proposals, Keller told It’s All Journalism:

What they all have in common is this kind of urgent tone. The one that I wrote in 2005 sounded like a manifesto. In fact, I wrote it sort of assuming some people would object to it, and everybody immediately said, ‘oh yeah, that’s right, I guess we better do that.’

They all make the same point, which is old media still has a ways to go to overcome the cultural and psychological habits that are rooted in the old world.

Good morning. Here are 10 (OK, perhaps slightly more than 10) media stories.

Gannett had a good second quarter: Broadcast revenue was “almost 88 percent higher in the quarter compared to the second quarter last year.” Publishing advertising revenue fell about 5 percent; circulation was roughly flat, and “At local domestic publishing sites, home delivery circulation revenue was up in the quarter due, in part, to strategic pricing actions associated with enhanced content.” (Gannett)

Washington Post fights the “wonk wars”: The Washington Post’s new “Storyline” project is “dedicated to the power of stories to help us understand complicated, critical things,” Editor Jim Tankersley writes. (The Washington Post) | Michael Calderone takes a look: “It’s unlikely The Post would’ve launched a project like Storyline a few years ago.” (HuffPost) | Tankersley writes that as a college student he was inspired by Richard Read‘s 1998 series about french fries: “Those stories brought the crisis home in a way no textbook or straight news piece could, because at each step, they showed how global trends touched people’s lives and livelihoods.” (The Oregonian)

Why corrupt politicians should avoid Vermont: Vermont has the best-covered legislature in the country, and California has the worst, Pew finds.